Teachers union boss explains how to get away with crime

Undercover video recorded by Project Veritas revealed how Hamilton Township Education Association President David Perry of New Jersey explained how his labor union protects teachers who have allegedly beaten or threatened school children. The video showed how Perry explained, “I’m here to defend even the worst people.” As for his tactics, Perry said, “I need to know the truth, so that we can bend the truth” when addressing accusations made by students against teachers. “We do turn [these reports] around to where, if it was a physical punch, it wasn’t a punch. It was a shove.”

The video was recorded on March 27. It showed the steps Perry and the teacher’s union would take to protect teachers who physically abused and threatened middle school students from losing their job. He said that he would misrepresent the facts about altercations between teachers and students by back-dating reports, while also instructing teachers to not tell anybody about incidents with students. Perry said that teachers who abuse students should go to the union after any incident and draft a report that would protect them from students that come forward about abuse. “If he comes to me tomorrow, I’m gonna date [the report] back to the day after the incident.”

Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe said, according to a press release, “The unions would argue that they are protecting the institutions to protect the children. But their actions and words are corrupt. The institutions are not the children. Teachers unions are interested in protecting themselves. It would be nice if Dr. Perry were just one bad apple. That is certainly what we will hear in the media. But don’t believe it. If you do, then watch the rest of this series.” Project Veritas announced that it will release more videos about teachers unions.

According to Project Veritas, Perry may have broken the law. According to New Jersey’s Department of Children and Families, “In New Jersey, any person having reasonable cause to believe a child has been subjected to abuse or acts of abuse should immediately report this information…” Project Veritas reported that among the teachers that the union protected was an accused shoplifter and a drug-abuser.

In the video, when the undercover journalist asked Perry how to protect a teacher who allegedly abused a student physically, Perry replied that his strategy is to “bring it down a level ” by misrepresenting the facts of the incident. “We do turn [these reports] around to where, if it was a physical punch, it wasn’t a punch. It was a shove.“ Perry said, “If [the teacher] comes to me tomorrow, I’m gonna date the report to the day after the incident.“

“I’m gonna strongly advise… [if] the kid’s gonna turn around and say ‘Well [the teacher] threatened me….’ I can say ‘No. No no no. On March 22nd, the day after the incident, [the teacher] came over to me and told me [what happened.] And we just wanted to put it on record so that nothing more would come about it.'”

“It covers [the teacher!] Because he came in and reported it right away and that he was afraid… but here’s what happened. Everything else is bullsh*t.” Perry then said how he would misrepresent facts to protect teachers. “In other words, if you threatened the kid, you didn’t threaten the kid. You said ‘Knock it off or else.'”

“If [the teacher] actually said ‘knock if off or I’ll kill you,’ or ‘I’ll beat the shit out of you’ or ‘I’ll hurt you’ or ‘I’ll hurt your family,’ we don’t say that. It’s a mistake. It was out of the emotions. We don’t even log that in. I’m gonna let you know right now he came in the day after. Even though he didn’t, I would say he did. And the only record that this is, it stays here.”

Perry told Project Veritas undercover journalist that “to defend even the worst people,” the teacher must tell him everything because he “need[s] to know the truth so that we can bend the truth.” Perry reiterated that the teacher in question must not report the incident to anyone. “[The teacher] needs to not tell anybody A THING. This has gotta be down the river.”

Perry told Project Veritas that the longer it takes for a student to report alleged abuse by a teacher, the better. Perry suggests that this is because the security camera footage at schools gets erased every couple of weeks. “That’s why I would never wanna bring it up. The longer we wait, the longer there’s no, there’s no camera.“